


permament chase

by yerm



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Small Town, Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Translation, artist renjun and his favorite painting jaemin, donghyuck's religion is mark he's a markstian, how i fell in love with god: a novel by mark lee
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:21:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22612462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yerm/pseuds/yerm
Summary: according to the weather forecast, come the eastern wind, rain and unexpected meetings to the tune of someone's dubious poems.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Na Jaemin, Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	1. one;

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [permament chase](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/557161) by monstrum. 



> monstrum has her fics connected to one another with small details in each story, and i think it's ##rad as hell. you might find some threads in her [other work](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20377030) which i highly recommend reading (.◜◡◝)
> 
> original work on [ficbook](https://ficbook.net/readfic/7240536)
> 
> author's [twt](https://twitter.com/sailorstay)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 5sos — valentine

This night it's autumn-y damp, humid, even the coffee in a paper cup that Donghyuck drinks as soon as he walks out the coffee shop into the quiet town doesn't save from the cold that swiftly falls on his shoulders. In this town he, as it seems, got stuck for a long time. _If not forever,_ \- points out with a chuckle, throwing the crumpled cup in a tall trash can. 

When there are screams flying out of some basement that he pads past in his red converses, Donghyuck gets scared, after all this is a provincial town with fat cats on educational institutions' stairs and smoking young people that work not by their major in cramped rooms; after all, this is a provincial town, where nothing ever happens, what's the reason of screaming? Did maniacs flood this town too? 

Donghyuck winces as he crouches down to hear better. Those are not just screams - poems, original and amateur, but who is he not to listen to the end? Starting with a scream, the words fade into a weak gentle whisper, and this whisper seems surprisingly familiar. 

"And I beg after: «come back» as if the wind could hear me, like the winged one could come down from heavens! That is a bringer… of news so good, that all the problems, just like clouds, disperse and hide in the dark of the days. Days, similar to a rubber ring on water. Days, full of thoughts of you. You - the gone one, but returning through a dream, because a dream - here it is! that's what remains when a heart is broken, when everything is about him… When there are no extraneous thoughts, all the thoughts are the same; all the thoughts are about that dream, there we were. Together. And what is it with me now? I am alone. And I whisper after «goodbye» as if everything is up to - at least for once in life! - my (not yours) words." 

Donghyuck goes slack, switching his common sense off before sitting down on stairs, his ear on the dirty door. Maybe, it's the dirt that covers such clear words? 

Donghyuck sits, freezes, but sits nonetheless until the door knocks his back and the boy coming out happens to be someone who he once wanted to see more than anything else in the world. The words that were hanging in the air just minutes ago dissolve in the other's perfume scent, Donghyuck weakly smiles, lips trembling. And internally dies as he hears a faint cottony whisper, "Hello." 

Donghyuck believes in a lot of things: talismans, bought in an underground pass; threads of different colors, hugging a thin wrist; tarot cards (he owns a collection, his friend drew them for him); pouches with herbs and _special_ sand, driving away the evil spirits; orange scent that brings good luck. Donghyuck's losing track of everything he believes in, stuffing his room with vases full of dried flowers, each bud with its own meaning. But if there's anything Donghyuck questions, it's religion, the love to which his mom so carefully tried to plant in him since his childhood. His sunny mom, whom faith in God couldn't save from death. 

The most important thing is that Donghyuck believes in Fate, and it's here - happening right in front of him. 

"Hello," and his shoulders get back in place on their own accord, Donghyuck becomes softer entirely, any minute now and he could disappear under the forthcoming rain, like a sugar cube. 

"What were you doing here?" 

Donghyuck smiles, about to reply something...

...and understands that he has absolutely nothing to say.

\

Renjun closes the drawer with a loud bang and a curse, as rich as dad's favorite beer. Jungwoo jerks at a sudden noise and, jumping in his seat, clutches at his chest, his quiet "oh" melts in the air, remaining unnoticed. And Renjun sits right on the paint-stained floor, face hidden in sharp knees. 

"What's wrong?" Jungwoo tries to speak louder, but the everlasting fear of being intrusive makes itself known, his phrase drowning in loud silence. 

Nevertheless, Renjun flinches, looks attentively and shakes his head, making it clear that he isn't ready for any discussions (yet). And there's no guarantee that he will ever be, that's how Jungwoo understands it; he simply nods, purses his lips as if saying you know best. Either know that keeping silent isn't better at all. 

"Just..." Renjun starts suddenly and stops himself, deeply inhaling. 

"Just what?" Jungwoo asks the question, a soft echo. 

"I should go home," at this phrase Jungwoo looks at the clock and nods in agreement, "but I don't want to. I have nothing to do there. I might, even," now Renjun quiets down to a conspirational whisper, _"run away."_

"Run away?" Jungwoo rocks forward and drops his wooden palette and all five brushes that were held in his left hand; dirties his white shirt and gives it no mind. 

"Run away," Renjun looks up, wiping a single tear that was freezing his cheek off his red sweater. "I will run away," he repeats much more confident to himself. 

Jungwoo oh so wants to ask.

Where run away to? Why running away? Who running away from? Whom running away to? No, but, really... Runaway?

But Jungwoo asks nothing, he sniffs as if ready to cry and returns to his work, Renjun and he, after all, aren't friends, more like practically strangers. Just once they happened to be in the same studio and stay behind for a while, so Jungwoo shouldn't take an extra part in it, what if much secretive Renjun deems it as a burden?

But still...

"...do you need help with where to live?" A curt turn and a sudden holler. 

"What?"

"If you run away," Jungwoo starts blubbering, "then you need somewhere to stay. I live in a dorm, our fourth bed is empty. Come on?" 

And Renjun smiles and nods, starts to fuss around, grabbing his backpack and plugging off his super-expensive smartphone from charging. And keeps murmuring words of gratitude. And hurries Jungwoo that came just an hour ago. 

\

There always was something separating Mark from those close to his heart: silence, a missed call, sudden opinion difference. Faith separated him from Donghyuck. And very little - some hundredth of a percent - trains and rails.

Kilometers. 

"I don't know," Donghyuck shrugs and nervously laughs. " _Believe or not_ , I," _it's their old, older than the world, game,_ "but I haven't even started finding you." 

"Were you planning to?" Now it's Mark's turn to awkwardly laugh, he kicks some crumpled can of soda that was lying on the pavement. "Don't answer," it's tight and viscous there in his chest, he really doesn't want to hear anything.

Donghyuck looks sullenly, bites his lip - hands in pockets. If he's being honest, he doesn't know what he would answer; he doesn't know what to even answer here. So he averts his eyes before Mark says, "Don't look like _that._ "

"How's _that_?" 

"Like a few years ago," Mark sighs and beckons. "Let's go, we should take a walk." 

"It's night," Donghyuck resents but, of course, trails after him.

"Our Lord is best heard at night," Mark smirks and disappears in the neon light, just like in a Baz Luhrmann movie. Donghyuck hopes that the ending will be much benevolent.

\

The room, in which Jungwoo lives, is big and filled with hallways and passages. There's a stove, and a washing machine, and a bathroom hiding behind a door, and shelves stocked to a brim with books, and a gigantic closet with a mirror, and... a pretty boy reading a book in a soft cover under a faint lamplight.

The stranger shakes his head to the music beat playing in his earphones, nibbles on a yellow-green apple and quite often flips through pages. Renjun understands that he probably knows this book by heart, and goes through it in tribute to some of his ritual. _At least,_ that's what exactly Renjun likes to do. 

"Ghm," Jungwoo coughs, "sorry, he's a little antisocial." 

"Just like you?" Renjun laughs, throwing his backpack on the empty bed. 

"No," Jungwoo answers firmly for the first time since they met each other. "He just doesn't trust a lot of people, that's why he keeps quiet, but once you get to know him better - he will call you at night, telling about a black sarcophagus, found in Egypt a month ago."

"But is it true?" There's a strange spark in Renjun's eyes.

"What?" Jungwoo doesn't understand.

"Well, about the sarcophagus," Renjun urges on. "Is it true?" 

Right here the stranger's voice meddles in, so deep, Renjun thinks at first that its owner artificially lowers it, "A sheer truth. My name's Jaemin," and reaches his hand out first. Renjun looks at him with eyes wide open and shakes his hand, noticing that his own fingers are trembling. 

"Renjun," catches himself on time, saying his name back. 

"Nana, where's Mark wandering?" Jungwoo asks as he hangs his jacket that he was trying to cover the paint spots on his shirt with. "I haven't seen him all day."

"You won't believe," he sighs, "I haven't seen him too. He might be doing his Christian rap again." 

"Christian rap?" Renjun questions. "Prayers or something?" 

"Okay," Jungwoo ignores the new roomer's comment. "He'll come back when he wants to, I'm not gonna call him."

Jaemin shrugs, returns back to his bed and to his reading, with his skin feeling Renjun's piercing gaze until the very light shutdown, and for some reason, his gaze, contrary to usual attitudes, doesn't annoy him at all, doesn't bother. He feels opposite - somehow weirdly nice and very sweet, much sweeter than the apple he bought in the store. 

He clicks the lamp off, robbing the light, and falls on his pillow. "Goodnight, Injunnie," Jaemin smiles in the dark, much confused at himself.

Renjun grunts in response something unintelligible, something about cliquishness that can go fuck itself, about his own stupidity. Jaemin only laughs at that, covering his mouth. He can swear, Renjun deeply blushed.

That thought is, just like Renjun's stare, nice. 

And very sweet.


	2. two;

Everyone was little once - a little naïve, as easy as the fluff flying off the trees, as sunny as the sun glares in the windows of large corporations' tall buildings, silly rain boots (the ones that your parents make you wear) slapping on puddles. Mark was like that too.

He likes going through memories of his childhood: his parents took him to church every Sunday, his mom ironed him his best shirt, crunchy after washing, and his dad always bought the most delicious caramel poured buns, in a stoll opposite the temple. The church service was held under high arches, accompanied by a wonderful singing of the choir, like a dream in a dream you don't want to wake up from at all. In the temple, Mark was constantly feeling what people call love. Electricity at fingertips, butterflies in stomach, a heavy heart. 

It might be why he couldn't understand his classmates who, just as they hit thirteen, started to show romantic interest in each other; this is probably why he isolated himself and stopped hanging out, talking to people, being the kind of himself his peers used to see; it's probably why he went into religion with the come of adolescence, although as a kid he'd attended the temple only because his parents were making him to.

And, maybe, that's why he started hating himself so much when he fell in love. Because, how could he love someone aside from the Lord? How could he love another one of _him_? 

  
How could he?  
How could?  
How?

Donghyuck came on a spring day, a prickly dew, the first sunrise ray, climbing through heavy lowered shutters. That ray had woken Mark up, moving him from a red color of dreams to blue color of reality. Donghyuck isn't a dream, he's alive, and he was lying on a bench in the temple, taking pictures of the ceiling.

"What are you doing here?" Mark immediately boiled over after noticing a figure on the bench of the first row, though he was standing in the doors and couldn't move: he always was alone in the temple at this time of day.

Donghyuck propped himself up on his elbows - a fourteen-year-old demon, _devil_ , daring to come into the angels' cloister. Mark was looking at him and wasn't able to look away; no heavy hearts, no butterflies in his stomach, no electricity at his fingertips, **a fear** , primeval, unclear, fist-punching on his head. And Donghyuck? He was smiling, clicked his camera one more time - in Mark's face - and laid on the bench again, his back hitting against it painfully. 

That's how they met each other.  
That's how his tragic (but undoubtedly amazing) love story has begun to Mark.  
And one August night it had started again, as luck would have it.

Donghyuck's rushing around in his own body, as if possessed by someone, wrings his fingers and only sometimes looks at Mark. And, when they both silently stop at the temple, suddenly blurts out, "I came for you. If I could, I would've come sooner, but it wasn't depending on me, you get it?"

Mark frowns, he nods but frowns. Understanding doesn't always guarantee acceptance; understanding doesn't always guarantee agreement; understanding isn't always like this, without any confirmation. Only with Donghyuck, this understanding is easier than two times two, easier than Present Simple and E chord, as if in some other universe they could be something one, like a human system.

Like a solar system. Like a galaxy. Like the cosmos entirely. 

Mark doesn't realize that he's crying until Donghyuck thumbs under his eyes. So easy, like a fluff flying off the trees; so sunny, like the sun glares in the windows of large corporations' tall buildings. Looking into each other's eyes, and Donghyuck subtly smiles, as if only now his soul stopped rushing around and found peace, surprisingly Mark understands this as well. 

Mark always understands, so he bends over and kisses him, just as appropriate in such a situation. Dryly, greedily, not for the pleasure but out of necessity. Donghyuck replies kisses on kisses, then drags somewhere, haltingly whispering, "It's your favorite temple here, not allowed here." 

"Then may God know how bad it is to separate us," Mark whispers in response.

He likes remembering his childhood: it ended with parting with Donghyuck.

\

Renjun sleeps very badly - stupid thoughts and worries don't leave his mind. What if he didn't go home for nothing? What if his parents are looking for him like crazy? Calling hospitals, police stations, morgues? For once they're worried about their son's faith? For once they want to hug him? Listen to him? Kiss his forehead goodnight?

_Nonsense._

Renjun doesn't realize when he finally wakes up.  
Renjun doesn't realize when he starts sobbing.  
Renjun doesn't realize when someone's warm arms circle him from behind.

"Hey," Jaemin's whisper is as deep as his voice in daylight, "everything's okay, you hear me?" 

Renjun doesn't want to turn around.  
Renjun doesn't want to believe that this moment is in his waking hours.  
Renjun doesn't want to answer.

"I ran away from home too." 

And now, Renjun turns around, and believes, and answers; looks with his eyes full of tears and hardly can see Jaemin's face in the dark of the night, "how'd you find out? Did hyung tell you?"

Jaemin shakes his head, pulls back gingerly as if realizing that he and Renjun just met each other and their relationship level is not, of course, the one to be lying _that_ close to each other. _That_ close that it's easy to crawl in each other's mind and read all the thoughts. 

"It's just, I ran away too," Jaemin tiredly sighs, "it's always seen in person's gaze. Doubt, fear, worry. When you don't know what to do with your life next, but it's necessary to do something." Renjun nods, his palm wiping off a tear, Jaemin laughs so quietly, squeezes his own hands, like he's holding back from something (he just really wants to fix Renjun's hair).

"How did you handle it? Well, the runaway. You're not a vampire to just wait a hundred years and forget everything." 

"I could be it," and he laughs a little louder. "I just talked it out. That's what people usually do - they talk; it took me a year away from home to get ready for the talk. Everything's gonna be okay, you just have to talk." 

"Why?" Renjun's whisper is ripped. 

"To not bottle it up in yourself," Jaemin's hot hand goes through Renjun's bangs anyway. "To not cry like this at night, you see? We're talking, and you're calming down." 

Renjun nods, though he doesn't agree at all; he's not better because of them talking - he's better because of the warmness of Jaemin lying next to him. They get quiet, Jaemin _hears_ each of Renjun's feelings in this silence, dawns to say something, but shuts down in the end.

"Are you asleep?" Renjun suddenly speaks up when Jaemin starts weirdly sniffling. 

"No," the other cheerfully replies. "But you should be. I will drive nightmares away."

For some reason, Renjun believes him.

\

Mark always thought that his love for Donghyuck is just a callow teenage feeling of attachment. After all, how is love different from a want to be friends? The needs are the same: to be near, to touch each other, to talk all day long, to find out more and more details...

...with each day Mark was falling deeper and deeper, scratching his knees; with each day Donghyuck smiled lighter, freer, more attractive; with each day Mark wanted to be closer, closer, closer. Until one day, while walking through an abandoned industrial zone, Mark stopped dead in his tracks, and Donghyuck turned around, like in slow motion. 

"Stop it."

Donghyuck - now fifteen years old, mature and changed almost unrecognizably a year later - felt smaller, tensed up, became a tight string at those words. Or a bowstring. Or a thing that's ready to fall out the closet just as you open the door. Or a boot with the slippery sole. Or a thread on which the whole sweater is held. Donghyuck was ready to become anything at that moment, only not to hear such a tone from Mark. "What?"

Mark fell down, fingers hiding in his hair, muttering something under his breath and swaying from side to side as if on a border of a dream. Donghyuck sat down next to him, his camera's swaying on his neck as usual, and he made a shot as if on accident, really unnoticeably. "I will name it A Believer At the Crossroads*."

"What are my crossroads then?" Mark's whisper was exhausted and gentle. 

Donghyuck took Mark's face in his hands. Leaned in with his chapped lips. Peppery, sour, bitterly, teary. Mark answered the kiss, Donghyuck wasn't even surprised. It became sweet, viscous, sunny, with strawberry flavor. "This is your crossroads." 

Mark could indefinitely understand everything, but Donghyuck always understands everything too. Therefore their meetings became a secret back then, therefore there was more and more of blank space on the report cards, therefore, as soon as parents of both found out, a beautiful tale to which they were running away (a tale where they were close, where they were together), broke off in the middle. Got stuck on still unflipped page with the next chapter. Was left on the furthest shelf. 

Donghyuck's mother made a grand scene right in the church. She blamed Mark's parents during church service that their son is a pervert, seduced their boy. 

In turn, Mark's parents blamed Donghyuck for being a bad influence on their golden son, who wasn't himself after meeting the boy. Demons made themselves at home in his soul. 

Sixteen-year-old Donghyuck was banging on the compartment window when the train slowly began to move. When seventeen-year-old Mark was whispering his miserable "Bye!". Both of them weren't forgetting about each other even for a minute; they were seeing each other in dreams. Only there they could exchange at least a word. 

"Why did you come back here?" Mark asks between the kisses. 

"You understand. You always understand everything," Donghyuck replies between sighs. 

The east wind is blowing.  
August night gives way to September morning.

Seems like Mark starts to believe in something (someone) other than God. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * "I will name it A Believer At the Crossroads." - donghyuck is referring to the famous work of [Viktor Vasnetsov](https://www.wikiart.org/en/viktor-vasnetsov) called [A Knight At the Crossroads](https://www.wikiart.org/en/viktor-vasnetsov/a-knight-at-the-crossroads-1878)


	3. three;

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hillsong united — oceans

_when oceans rise_

_my soul will rest in your embrace_

_for I am yours and you are mine_

This small town has only two hotels. Donghyuck would never in his life have enough money for the room in the first one, and the room in the second is a narrow space limited by doors, beds, and hangers. 

Mark remembers this room, for one time they'd already woken up like this: so young, green, living in constant fear of getting caught - with their fast wet kisses, left along the way. Along the way to home, the way to school, _the way to God._

"I don't believe," Donghyuck said once, sitting on the hotel room's windowsill. "I just don't believe and that's on that, I can't, you get it? Too much power for him alone. Too much unfairness from him alone."

"What unfairness?" Personally, Mark had only one unfairness - the impossibility of openly being with Donghyuck. _Yet_. Yes! Yet, but one day everything will change, illuminated by peach lights and flower gardens; one day everything will change, it will give them confidence, peace, happiness. 

Donghyuck's chest was aching with hurt and fear. The only one who was saving him from this wasn't God (though he tried to find his miraculous salvation in the temples, he honestly tried, trailing behind his mother, whose soul was restricted by her illness more and more day by day), at least not the God in his classical understanding. The only one who was saving him from this was Mark.

With disheveled hair, always half asleep, carrying some power under his skin, it heals all the old wounds. Smelling from head to toe of washing powder, candles, and his inner drive, a fire. 

Mark, who told marvelous stories. And wrote wonderful poems, dedicated to him, to Donghyuck, only him, so small in this manifold, such a big world.

Donghyuck kept quiet for a very long time, simply looking at Mark, his wrinkled emerald shirt, feather-like hair, moony - fond - eyes. And, when he finally spoke, for the first time in his life has he said two things at once, both - to his microcosmos.

"I believe _in you_ because _only you_ I love." 

\

September morning smells for Renjun of fresh strawberry and summer, Jaemin snuffles next to him, buried in a blanket right to his nose: so real and still dreamy, Renjun can't believe his eyes. Blinks a few times, but the sight represented in a dawn pink light does not disappear, his heart pouring with unusual warmth and...

...a horrible longing for his soft bed, for the smell of banana pancakes and expensive coffee, for dark light coming behind the closed curtains. Renjun even might be missing his father's cold remarks, a newspaper in tow; arguments with his mother, just in case ready to hit with a towel hanging on her shoulder; his dark gray cat that his friend had brought some time. 

Jungwoo's already in the kitchen, chewing on insipid toast and drinking expired chocolate milk, Renjun nods at him, not even asking where he heads off to (it's clear anyway - to his boyfriend, Lucas) and, sitting on a hard stool, scoffs. What was he hoping for? That an independent life of an exile will lead to something? And how to fix this hubbub that picked him into its whirlpool? 

_It will get better, you just have to talk._

Isn't it true? Isn't Jaemin right? Look at the paintings - there are no words in them, but everything's understandable, simple, even if technically it's hard. Look at the paintings - they're always prettier than life. Silence there is always prettier than talking. 

And yet Renjun fishes his phone out his backpack, no messages received during the night of his absence, and his finger hovers for a long time over the green call icon next to the contact. 

_To not bottle it up in yourself. To not cry at night._

"Coffee with expired chocolate milk or with moldy vanilla one?" Renjun jerks up, he did not expect Jaemin to already get up, the other only smiles, opening high cupboards and changing his glances between their content and his interlocutor. "Or coffee with a heart-to-heart?" 

"Why?" Renjun tries to squeak at least something. "Ran out of sugar?" 

Jaemin laughs as if Renjun just said their own inside joke. "Well, when you come visit next time, do us a favor and bring it," he nods at the phone in the other's hands with some gloomy melancholy in his eyes, contrary to the luminous expression on his face. "And not just some sugar, but, I don't know, especially for coffee. An expensive one." 

"How'd you know?" Renjun has a deja vu, he's asked this not that long time ago. "How'd you know that I will come back home?" 

Jaemin turns off the whistling kettle, looks at Renjun over his shoulder, and here's this grim sorrow. The silence that was hanging in the air breaks like china from his grandmother's service just like that time when Renjun and his friends were playing in her residence. 

"Because you have a home," Jaemin responds, moving a cup with a shabby emblem of a festival rock group. "And, when it's yours, you have to return."

\

"Do you remember?" Mark kisses Donghyuck's shoulder. 

"Mark," he turns and looks right into his eyes. Intently. Hungrily. Looks, like a man, who passed through all the Sahara desert with two flasks of water would look at an oasis. "I remember everything about you." 

Mark only hides his smile in the pillow and shakes his head. Tries to convince that there's nothing to remember about him - he's gray, lifeless and so boringly ordinary that no epithets come up for a description of him. At first, Donghyuck puts a finger to his lips, then - his own lips. And he looks like that, like he’s always looked a few years ago. "Do you know what you are, Mark Lee?" 

"What are you talking about?" Mark asks in a prayerful whisper. 

"About you," Donghyuck answers in the same tone. "About your habit of biting your lips when you're worried; about your voice timbre that always soothes me; about your altruism; about your convincement; about your mind; your poems; about your inner core which makes me want to believe everything you say. I want to, but I don't believe your words. I believe you. And also - I believe in you. May I lose my talismans, bought in an underground pass; threads on my wrist; tarot cards that Renjun made; pouches with herbs that ward off evil spirits; dried orange peel. May I lose anything," tears pour from his eyes, "anybody... Just..." 

"Hyuck," Mark asks, "just don't you lose yourself," he frowns, takes his hands in his. "Promising to be forever with each other is a great burden and I don't wanna put it on both of us. But may you always be only yourself. You will be the sun, mistakenly caught in a human form."

Overhead, a lamp buzzes, its sense lost with sunrise. Donghyuck kisses Mark's collarbone, he breathes in a smell of clarity and winter, gone the smell of candles, and he looks up in fear as if asking. And Mark smiles on edge of tears.

"I love you because only in you I believe." 

\

The day's gray and smelling of rain, the wind's blowing, silencing words, and Renjun doesn't want to go outside, he just talked to Donghyuck who bragged about going back home - a big city that breathes with life. 

_"I swear, I won't be stuck here anymore. And won't let Mark get stuck."_

Renjun knows about Donghyuck a lot, almost everything, since the days they were sitting together at the same desk at school. When one's constant was spoiling his notes with doodles, the other's was making silly pictures of the blooming sakura outside the window. And, knowing about Donghyuck a lot, almost everything, Renjun also knows that if the other promised to do something, then - he'll do, surely he'll do it, no matter what it takes. 

Renjun doesn't want to get stuck too, especially right now, when there are no understatements between him and his parents. When they're even ready to pay for his first exhibition in the heart of Seoul. And yet - something still holds him, stealing his sleep for the third day in a row. 

Jaemin is standing in the doorstep. Stands and asks about his being that has to be somehow well. Pulling a face and not understanding what for, Renjun purses his lips and exhales a cloud of steam, "You were right," puts his hands in the pockets of his jeans, stands in the doorstep of his parents' house and looks down at Jaemin, who nods and nods. "You just need to talk." 

Jaemin scoffs, "Yes, to talk," and he himself doesn't know what to say. "Alrighty, I'll go, just wanted to ask how you were doing. And to warn you that today Mark has a farewell poetic event in the basement on the street Third. Um, Christian rap and all that." 

Renjun laughs, he shakes his head, "I'll come, my best friend's gonna be there anyway." 

"Didn't know," Jaemin straightens up, "that we're best friends now, what an honor!" 

"I'm talking about Donghyuck," Renjun rolls his eyes. They're silent, and Renjun gets scared that Jaemin might just... just...

"...DON'T GO!" Renjun plops down the wet stairs right in his slippers, grabs Jaemin by the sleeve of his big sweater. "I'm holding my own exhibition soon. Maybe next month. An art series, Constant Race, about how people are nothing but running, running, running. And they forget not only to believe and love but to talk too, you know?" 

Jaemin nods, uncomprehending, his heart beats and beats, beats and beats, beats and...

"...it will be in Seoul. And I need somebody who'd help. If I'm being honest," Renjun squints, "I need _you_. Don't worry about money! Your beloved sugar is also sold there." 

And Jaemin laughs, long fingers running through his hair, looks delightfully and keeps silent. Renjun suddenly understands several things and laughs at his guess too. Understands that some things are needed to stay unsaid. And understands that sometimes you get to know a person in ten seconds, shaking each other's hands, better than someone in ten years. Understands that the autumn street smells of summer again. 

And of fresh strawberry. 

"Wait for me for a second, we'll walk to the studio." 

He grabs his denim jacket, kisses his mom goodbye, and takes Jaemin's hand when he finally walks down to him. The other doesn't protest at all because holding hands - is that one small thing they don't have to voice out. 

"Does Mark have poems about this?" _about soulmates, suns, and moons; about the disease of silence and panacea for conversation._

"What matters here is if you have paintings about this," Renjun could swear he's never seen a single canvas prettier than Jaemin's smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> give love, it's so important
> 
> i hope you enjoyed reading this work as much as i did translating it. have a nice day <33

**Author's Note:**

> me: my career as a translator is over nobody care me  
> monstrum:  
> me: i may translate. Once
> 
> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/beargihugs)


End file.
